Plater College archives donated to Jesuits

Fr Charles Plater

The Jesuit Archives in London have recently acquired the remaining archive of Plater College, the former Catholic Workers' College in Oxford, named after Father Charles Plater SJ. The collection includes papers, photos and artefacts from the College's 80-year history.

Charles Plater was born in London in 1875 and became a Jesuit in 1894. Inspired by the retreat work he witnessed during his travels in France, Germany and Belgium, he was determined to popularise retreats for working people and to promote social study in general. The Catholic Social Movement, which was then growing in Europe, brought people together, partly to deepen and enrich their own spiritual lives, and partly to encourage them to take practical steps towards social reform. In time Fr Plater travelled all over Britain, offering retreats, delivering lectures, forming study classes and social guilds. In 1920, he travelled to Ireland and Malta for health reasons and, while there, in addition to lecturing, he founded the 'Leo Union', which sought to educate, inform, and raise the morale of the working-classes by forming study groups, offering training and evening classes, and producing publications on social problems.

Fr Plater died in 1921, aged just 45, and was honoured nine months after his death by the foundation of the Catholic Workers' College in Oxford, which was renamed Plater College in 1965. For over 80 years, until its closure in 2005, the College offered further educational opportunities - with an emphasis on Catholic social teaching - to adult students from across the UK and overseas who were in the working world or who had seen their studies interrupted.

The remaining archive reflects much of Plater College's rich history. It consists of documents and photographs which chart the development of the College from its small beginnings in Iffley Road, Oxford, with three students and Fr Leo O'Hea SJ acting as Principal, through its move to its first permanent home in Walton Well Road, and subsequently to two further sites in Oxford. Along with papers relating to Fr Plater and several of the past Principals of the College, the archive contains year books, annual reports, minute books, publications and correspondence produced by the Catholic Social Guild, and papers relating to summer schools arranged by the Guild and College from the 1920s to the early 2000s. It does not, however, include student records or personnel files.

Amongst the bulkier items in the collection are a life-size statue of St Ignatius (the founder of the Jesuits), a chalice made and presented by students to Fr O'Hea, and a large crucifix, which had originally hung in the Jesuit Community's chapel at Heythrop College, Enstone; this was later presented to Plater College in memory of Maurice Leahy KSG and his work in support of the College and Catholic Social Guild. The crucifix will now be housed with the Jesuit Community in Boscombe, near Bournemouth, and the chalice has been transferred to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, London.

Fr Tom McCoog SJ, Archivist for the Jesuits in Britain, says: "We thank the Charles Plater Trust for their kind gift and look forward to delving more into this fascinating collection as it is catalogued and ultimately made available to researchers. We would expect the collection to be of interest to those researching the work of specific individuals associated with Plater College; but it should also provide a rich source of research for anyone studying social thought in the 20th century, and Catholic social action, in general, whether that be in a national, or international, context."

Source: Jesuit Communications